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John Boehner on hot seat as Senate acts

Boehner is following through on his promise to exhaust the legislative process. | AP Photo

Plus, the political compulsion to move quickly on either immigration or guns is simply not there in the House where districts are competitive only during primary season. In asking top GOP House aides about the prospect for gun legislation, the response was almost uniform: Where will the National Rifle Association come down (it has signaled it will oppose the Senate deal). Boehner merely says he will “review” Senate gun legislation. Local issues are of more concern for the House.

Boehner, who strategized with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Wednesday, is seeing the competing interests on both guns and immigration up close.

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Boehner casts doubt on Senate gun bill

In a House Republican Conference meeting Wednesday, moderate Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) told colleagues that he supported a Pennsylvania background checks law in the state Legislature in 1995 that hasn’t infringed on gun rights. Dent later voiced broad support for the Senate background checks measure, which was introduced by Toomey and Manchin on Wednesday.

But in that same meeting, held in the Capitol basement, GOP Reps. Doug LaMalfa of California and Phil Gingrey of Georgia separately said they didn’t want to get politically jammed by the Senate’s gun bill — and they told leaders they need a plan.

GOP leadership is currently weighing four options for handling the gun bill, according to sources close to leadership.

The first is to send a Senate-passed bill to the House Judiciary Committee for a markup — the panel would very likely take its time and gut the bill. Second is to ask that committee to draft its own background checks bill, which would almost certainly create a product that hews closely to the NRA’s specifications. House leadership is likely to give the committee wide berth on whether gun control laws need to be bolstered.

Boehner could also completely ignore the Senate bill — an unlikely outcome, aides say. Or he could move it straight to the House floor — that would happen only if the situation gets too politically hot for House Republicans. So far, that is not likely to happen: Just a handful of Republicans, most prominently Rep. Peter King of New York, have been supportive of Toomey and Manchin’s compromise.